Pilots reject contract with American Airlines

Associated Press fileAmerican Airlines jets line up at gates at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.

DALLAS -- Pilots
for American Airlines have expressed their anger with management by
overwhelmingly rejecting the company's final contract offer, but the
airline's mechanics approved a contract by a razor-thin margin.

Many
pilots hope that American will be forced into a merger with US Airways.
Some believe that ratifying the offer from American would have
strengthened the position of American's management and made a merger
less likely.

American said Wednesday that it was disappointed with
the pilots' vote. It will ask a federal bankruptcy judge to let it set
pay and other working terms for pilots. American and parent company AMR
have been in bankruptcy protection since November.

The Allied Pilots Association said that the vote against the contract was 4,600 to 2,935.

American
offered the pilots pay raises and a 13.5 percent stake in the new
company in exchange for more flexibility to shift flying to partner
airlines.

"We are disappointed with the outcome of today's
APA voting results, as ratification of the pilot tentative agreement
would have been an important step forward in our restructuring," said
Bruce Hicks, a spokesman for American parent AMR Corp. He said the
company would now wait for a ruling by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane
on rejecting the company's current pilots' contract so it can "implement
the changes necessary to move forward with our restructuring."

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